he become a constant protagonist of the new jazz school. Later, working with Charlie Parker, Georgie Auld, Red Rodney et al. With Max, Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Pettiford and Don Byas, he became one fifth of the first real bop combo ever to play on 52nd Street, in 1944. Big Band with Co-Leaders Thad Jones and Mel Lewis Members: Al Porcino, Barry Galbraith, Benny Powell, Bill Berry, Billy Harper, Bob Brookmeyer, Cliff Heather, Danny. A chance meeting with Max Roach led to his participation in the birth rites of the bop movement. 50 years ago today in 1969 trumpeter Donald Byrd was in Rudy Van Gelders Englewood Cliffs studio recording his album Kofi with saxophonists Frank Foster. George was only 15 when he quit high school to work in Brooklyn and Greenwich village, playing with small bands for 'pocket money and hot dogs' as he recalls. 'The name Wallington, selected more or less at random by its owner, hides a colorful cosmopolitan background, for George Figlia, as they called him when he made his bow in Palermo, Sicily in 1923, was the son of an Italian opera singer and grew up in a classical setting, but grew out of it into the jazz world when he first listened to Basie and Lester Young. Tracks: Summertime Festival Christina Frankie and Johnnie Baby Grand Bumpkins Brother Jack McDuff 7 Soundview Recording Studio, Kings Park, NY. Herbie Hancock: Cantaloupe Island (1964) Grant Green: Down Here On The Ground (1970) Ronnie Foster: Mystic Brew (1972) Lou Donaldson: Ode To Billie Joe (1967). A grace note here, an appogiatura there, attest to the fact that his solos in this set could not have been recorded before the new jazz generation arose, for he has absorbed the basic qualities of the veteran tenor men while adding more youthful ingredients of technical skill.' - Leonard Feather (Down Beat Magazine, original liner notes to 'Here Comes Frank Foster')ĭave Burns, trumpet Jimmy Cleveland, trombone Frank Foster, tenor sax Danny Bank, baritone sax, flute George Wallington, piano Oscar Pettiford, bass Kenny Clarke, drums Quincy Jones, arranger. He leans a little in favor of the former group in style and phrasing, too, he is emphatically of the extrovert school, speaking out in bold, mature lines while managing never to descend into the banalities of stomping-and-honking. 'Frank's tenor sound represents a healthy compromise between the heavy, lush tone of such early stars as Coleman Hawkins or Ben Webster, and the smaller, cool edges of the tone initiated by Lester Young and carried further by the Stan Getz school.

Frank foster blue note studio 1969